There are good jokes, bad jokes, and bad jokes that stop being jokes at all.

That last category belongs to a political climate in New Jersey that reached perhaps its nadir last week with the arrest of 11 more public officials, including Democratic Assembly members Mims Hackett of Essex and the Rev. Alfred Steele of Passaic. Such high-level scandal, even among lawmakers known by their colleagues for their seeming decency, seems almost inevitable in a state where legalized chicanery like pay-to-play deals and multiple office-holding is legal and widespread.

U.S. Attorney Christopher J. Christie has mounted a credible and seemingly nonpartisan attack on the state's underhanded political culture. Ultimately, it can't be up to the sheriff to clean up the town by himself —it must fall to the citizenry and the lawmakers. On the eve of the arrests, Gov. Corzine signed a law blocking legislators from simultaneously holding more than one elected office. The practice is rife with conflicts of interest and undermines accountability.

But much more needs to be done. The governor and legislature need to make good on promises to impose monetary penalties against people convicted of public corruption crimes; criminalize the misuse of public resources like grants, property, and loans; and ban contributions to state or county campaigns to companies that do more than $17,500 in business with the state, for starters. Much of this legislation has passed, but with yawning loopholes that make them toothless or ineffective. Above all, the state must do more to enforce the laws it passes and investigate and prosecute corruption wherever it exists.

An old proverb on leadership suggests that a "fish rots from the head." An opportunity will be wasted if the latest scandal is dismissed as the work of a few bad apples and not the inevitable consequence of a political culture that has been indulgent of wrongdoing for too long.